4.30.2016

April 29, 2016

White Dog noticed that C.A.Stormer seemed to be gravitating toward sleeping in the bedroom with the rest of the pack instead of on the bed in the office with his blanket. She is right for most of this week that Stormer has settled next to my side of the bed and sighed with contentment when I reached down and touched him.

With the weather swings Puff has been off her normal routine. Any shifts cause her to be restless and unable to settle down deeply at night; consequently, she often gets up and stumbles around in the darkness until she eventually just crashes somewhere and sleeps in fits and starts. To move her, fully awakens her and starts the wandering anew.

The White Dog Army understands her issues associated with being old and when startled by her stumbling against them as they sleep they bark a warning and just shift positions. The bark serves as a alarm to this momma who usually gets up and moves our Old Lady back to her bed so that she doesn't disturb the others.

But Storm has not been here long enough to know this ritual. Plus he has JUST begun to feel comfortable sleeping with the pack. PLUS he has a funky issue with Puff looking at him. So when she struggled from her bed, just a few feet from where C.A. slept, and attempted to wobble over to be nearer to me, she fell on her slumbering brother.

The brother who sleeps with his bad eye up...so he is truly completely blind until he turns his head.

She fell, he jumped to red attack alert and nipped Puff. It took about three seconds. I heard the growl, her squeal and swung my legs down over Storm to trap him against the bed while swooping Puff into my arms. She was trembling and he was in panic mode. And we were all in the dark.

I wrapped Puff in my blankets against me and bent to stroke Storm.

"Steve. Steve. Sorry to wake you but I need your help." I tried to sound gentle and unconcerned but I WAS waking him at 4 in the morning. "What?" he sat up with worry flooding over him.

"I need the light. Can't really move right now. I am OK. But we might need to treat Puff for a cut to her forehead."

Stormer had broken skin on our girl's brow; not so much a bite as a scrape where his teeth dragged short of sinking into flesh. But she was bleeding. Storm was madly licking my foot...what he does for reassurance.

Steve helped me clean Puff's wound and then gently placed her in the gated area where our gentle calm boy, Benson sleeps. He looked up for a second as Puff sank against him and then went back to sleep.

Steve wanted to be mad at Stormer but wisely decided that would not exactly be fair. Then he wanted to gate him in the office for future nights but decided that would not be fair to White Dog or to a boy still trying to find his place. We decided to leave the situation stand as it was. Puff was safe with Benson and Stormer would not have any more startling assaults. Tomorrow we would clearly consider the options and work on fixing the problem.